Taxpayers money spent on culling one of our rarest birds

It beggars belief that four endangered takahe were killed by incompetent cullers contracted to the Department of Conservation and the Minister must explain this wanton destruction, says Conservation spokesperson Ruth Dyson.

“It must not be forgotten that there are only 263 of these unique birds left on the planet.

“It appears the culling was completely unsupervised given the dead takahe were found some time after they were shot. And it isn't the first time this has happened.

“Is the Department of Conservation so poorly resourced that it can't even supervise such culls?

“The public deserves to know what action will now be taken by DOC in light of a clear breach of their instructions to shoot birds on the wing only. Will they still pay the cullers or will they more appropriately be taking action against them?

“To have taxpayers money spent on killing endangered birds is disgraceful and deserves a full explanation,” says Ruth Dyson.